That's our new anti-missle laser....that works.
Posted on 10/22/2003 4:00:39 PM PDT by HAL9000
The Pentagon is planning to deploy an experimental laser in Iraq to create a "virtual microphone" capable of detecting and homing in on sniper fire, a senior defense official said Wednesday.Development of that and other exotic technologies is being accelerated by a cutting edge Pentagon research agency to try out against discreet but deadly problems facing US forces in Iraq, like roadside bombs and sniping.
"One of the problems we're having is that people in Iraq can almost do anything they want, and get away with it. We don't have a good way to respond," said Anthony Tether, the director of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
"So what we're trying to do is come up with technology that will at least make people hesitate," he told reporters here.
He said the laser, which DARPA plans to send to Iraq in three of four months, is being developed in Torrance, California, by a private contractor, Mission Research Corportation, to pick up the sound of gunshots much the way radar detects moving objects.
Beams from a ground-based laser form a "virtual microphone" in the atmosphere by sensing the movement of particles as they are compressed by the shockwave caused by a bullet.
"It has various detection elements," Tether said. "You can determine by time differences where the sound came from and work backwards where it had to be on the ground."
He said the laser, which will have a range in the tens of kilometers, will probably be set up near Baghdad.
It will first be tested with live gunfire at Camp Pendleton, California.
Originally the laser was developed to detect ground vehicles hiding behind hills, Tether said.
"But also there is no reason why it can't detect snipers, or gunshots," he said.
He said DARPA also will be testing in Iraq other techniques using acoustics and electromagnetics to detect sniper fire.
In addition, he said the agency is working on ways to detect improvised roadside bombs before they explode by sensing electronic transmissions from cellphones or pagers that often are hooked up to the bombs so they can be detonated from a distance.
"It's not very good in the middle of the city, because everybody has a cellphone, but if you get in a convoy going across the desert or something like that and you started sensing electronics over to the right on the road a hundred yards ahead of you, that would be a great tip off," Tether said.
That's our new anti-missle laser....that works.
Too bad, "and vaporizing them" can't be part of the description.
Originally the laser was developed to detect ground vehicles hiding behind hills, Tether said.
Ok, I'm "laser ignorant" - how exactly does it do that? Moving / stationary vehicles? Is is detecting ground vibrations from moving vehicles?
LVM
It sounds as if it opperates as a lidar that detects the shock wave produced by a weapon discharge. By rapid scanning over a large area, the source of the shock wave can be trangulated. It is also important to know the atmospheric structure for best accuracy.
I bet it was meant to find ground vehicles behind hills when they fired their weapons.
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